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A History of Linux

A young college student named Linus Torvalds started Linux in 1991. He started this as a hobby based on Minix, a small version of Unix. His goal was to expand on the abilities of Minix and allow for a system that exceeded its capabilities. In 1991 he released version 0.2, the first version of the Linux kernel. He continued work on his project steadily until the release of version 1.0 in 1994. As of January 2001 Linux had reached version 2.4 and it continues to be updated every day.

A contest was held to create the Linux logo. It was decided by Linus Torvalds that the mascot would be a penguin. This was decided because it is his favorite animal. During the contest many people entered their versions of what it should look like. Linus went through each of these and did not see anything that represented the operating system well. He felt that the penguin should look very content, not angry or ferocious, or even overly happy, just content. He also felt that it should look like it is slightly overweight so that it looks as if it had just gorged itself on herring. The penguin was to be sitting because he felt that had it just gorged itself the penguin wouldn’t want to be standing, it would want to sit down and relax. After many letters from Linus to numerous people the logo was designed to his specifications. The beanbag of joy we now know as TUX was created and sat representing Linux in his own unique way.
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